Healthcare and affordability of healthcare is the most important debate in the world today. Cancer care and treatment is one of the most expensive treatments every where in the world. Efforts are being made to keep the costs low but it’s an immense challenge. Even a country North America, which is one of the most powerful countries in the world, is not able to pay for its healthcare. The single most reason for bankruptcy even in America is healthcare. People are fighting elections on health, there is Obama care/ Clinton care means it's so important to them. We ( in India ) are lower down on the ladder. The question is are we doing enough?

We are a low to middle income country by WHO standard and meeting the demands of cancer care is difficult for us as much as it’s for other countries may be more. So we have to plan , strategise in such a way that we can beat this challenge.

Affordability is important and so is the value for your money and effort that is put into getting that treatment.

Covid gave us a rude shock, we knew how important health and healthcare is . How important equatable care. There has to be a strategy and planning that good institutes are available to people across the spectrum. Ayushman Bharat is a way forward in India. I hope it takes care of cancer care as well. For even Ayushman Bharat to progress and succeed we need to increase spending on health. The health spending is small, we are trying to increase, we need to increase it more.

Governments need to set up more screening programmes, get data, and invest more in research. Demographic data tells us trends, who are getting cancers where, what type of cancers are prevalent in what place and we need to plan accordingly. Have a specific stargetted approach. Media needs to get involved, laws need to be implemented. We have to make an effort to catch cancers early.

To be continued read part two